


out in the breezeway

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Established Relationship, KNBxNBA, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: Shou gets the tattoo a week before they leave LA and head back east, a blue-green wave that, at the right angle, seems to be roaring out from Shou’s leg like a good morning on the beach when the air is clear.





	out in the breezeway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justlikeswitchblades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeswitchblades/gifts).



> happy birthday my darling! 
> 
> takes place after they've been together for a bit but before they get married (before they get engaged maybe?) but it's a little bit nebulous on purpose lol
> 
> title comes from dashboard confessional's "dusk & summer"

They don’t talk while doing the dishes until they’re drying the last few off, when the sound of the water has faded and their voices don’t have to do much to cut through the scraping of cloth over metal and porcelain.

”I think I’m going to get a wave,” says Shou. “Right here.”

He gestures to the back of his right calf, skin that’s relatively untouched but for a small scar, surrounded on all sides by tattoos of different shapes and sizes that twist around his leg, the dragon whose tail snakes under his knee and the peacock whose tail trails off on the back of his ankle. It almost looks as if it’s waiting to be filled in.

“All of that?" says Taiga.

Shou shrugs. “I’ll have to think it through. What size looks best. Depends on the design I end up getting, you know?”

Taiga nods. He and Shou have had this conversation about half the tattoos Shou’s gotten since they’d started dating, the flaming basketball on his ankle and the kanji of his mother’s name right below his left collarbone and the calendar near his hipbone and the Scorpio symbol at the base of his neck and the ring of the Stanley Cup all around his left thigh, featuring the last Leafs squad to win it twenty-five years before Shou had even been born (that one Taiga had vetoed, but Shou had gone ahead and gotten anyway, and despite the inconvenience it does look well done).

“You have a wave, though,” says Taiga.

It wraps around his right bicep, a repeating pattern of aqua foam, idealized and probably not very good for surfing—Taiga had noticed it the first time they’d played each other in the pros; Shou can’t have gotten it much earlier than that.

“Yeah, but I got that because it looked cool,” says Shou. “I didn’t surf then, so it doesn’t mean that, you know?”

Taiga grins. “I know. You could get, like, the Thunderbolt logo or something—”

“I’m not giving out free advertising,” says Shou, and he sticks out his tongue.

“Even for brand loyalty?”

“Even for that.”

Shou leans up to kiss Taiga’s mouth. “Maybe I’ll just get your face.”

Taiga snorts. “Where?”

“Same place,” says Shou. “Why, were were you thinking? Because if you wanted me to tattoo your mouth right next to my dick—”

Taiga throws a dishcloth near his head; Shou doesn’t flinch. He knows Taiga’s aim too well by now, and he knows that Taiga is more amused than angry.

“Well?” says Shou.

“Don’t push it,” says Taiga. “But I can give you something better than a tattoo.”

Shou steps a little closer. “How much better?”

“If you can’t tell, then maybe I’m not offering,” says Taiga.

“Maybe I just need a reminder,” says Shou.

His lips are light, brushing across Taiga’s—who’s teasing who here? It probably doesn’t matter. Taiga locks his fingers in Shou’s and kisses him for real.

* * *

Shou gets the tattoo a week before they leave LA and head back east, a blue-green wave that, at the right angle, seems to be roaring out from Shou’s leg like a good morning on the beach when the air is clear. They can’t go surfing with the tattoo so fresh, but there’s too much shit to do like packing up the house and starting to prep for training camp. They have some time to spare for themselves, but being able to lie together on the couch in front of shitty daytime television or spend an hour wandering the aisles of the grocery store trying to find stuff for dinner is, in Taiga’s opinion, vastly underrated.

Maybe it’s stuff like surfing together that he’ll say is a representative of what he and Shou do together, but it’s clipping each other’s elbows washing the dishes and Shou lying on top of him that he’s going to think about when there’s two months between the present moment and the next time they’ll be in the same city. One piece or the other of their relationship isn’t more important; Taiga loves both. He needs both.

(He’s going to think about playing basketball, too, dunking on each other in the park, sweat and sunscreen mixing in the spaces between Shou’s fingers, his hair buzzed back down to normal length now that he’s not out on the water all day and worried about a sunburned scalp, the smack of his hands against the ball to block Shou’s shots satisfying something deep in Taiga’s gut. He’s going to think about all of it, but—some of it more than the rest.)

Taiga can get away with fairly low maintenance on the house, since he’s not living here and using it most of the time, but there’s some stuff he periodically does have to do. He needs to find a good contractor to refinish the deck so they don’t get splinters, hire an exterminator to keep the ants and mice away or dead, and do all the boring adult shit that he doesn’t really care for.

“Buy an apartment,” says Shou.

“Then we can’t grill outside or sit on the deck,” says Taiga.

Shou hums, and maybe the compromise would be worth it for him, but it’s not for Taiga. (In a climate where there’s a lot of snow to be shoveled, the trade would be fair, but in LA it’s really not.)

“You can get a terrace,” says Shou. “I know you’re not supposed to grill on them, but everyone does anyway.”

“I want a yard,” says Taiga.

“And a white picket fence?”

“I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not,” says Shou. “I’ll build you a white picket fence if you want me to.”

Taiga raises an eyebrow. He highly doubts Shou would know what to do with a set of power tools, but picturing it actually is kind of hot. (Knowing Shou, that’s the whole point of it.)

“My birthday’s only eleven months away,” says Taiga. “Better start soon.”

“I’ll give you a much better birthday present,” says Shou.

“Is it sex?”

“That’s only part of it.”

Shou squeezes his hand, running one finger over Taiga’s knuckles. Letting the moment wash over him like a wave on the shoreline at his ankles, Taiga closes his eyes.


End file.
